


we said we'd fight together

by Florchis



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Bisexual Daisy Johnson, Bisexual Jemma Simmons, F/F, F/M, Fixing relationship, Healing, Multi, POV Skye | Daisy Johnson, Poly Positivity, Polyamory, Triad - Freeform, mentions of canon brainwashing/manipulation, post framework
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-27
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-24 17:48:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10746741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Florchis/pseuds/Florchis
Summary: Fitz is keeping Daisy at arm's lenght after what happened between her and his Framework version. Neither her nor Jemma like it one bit, so they take matters into their own hands.





	we said we'd fight together

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PiperHG](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PiperHG/gifts).



> This was supossed to be a little drabble from a tumblr prompt ("I'll still be here when you are ready."), and somehow it got out of control. I have wanted to write some FitzDaisy sort of fix thing since 4x18, and here it is. Anyway, happy belated birthday, @daisyjohnson-sq. This goes very parallel to canon except for Fitz, Daisy and Simmons doing this triad thing since before The Robopocalypse and The Framework. 
> 
> In case this wasn't clear enough, this story features Fitz, Daisy and Simmons in a poly relationship, and in every pair possible between the triad, so if you are not okay with that, please don't read it.
> 
> (This is rated T because of language and a brief discussion of sex dreams.)

They have been silent together for so long that Daisy can’t help being startled when Jemma speaks.

“You should talk to him.”

“Wh-what?”

“You heard me. You should talk to him. You are both miserable, and it is making me miserable, and this is a never-ending circle of pain.”

“It’s not that simple, Simmons.”

“I know.” Jemma takes a sip of her tea, and Daisy fixates on the way her lips curl around the edge of the mug. “But ‘not simple’ doesn’t mean ‘not doable’. Or not worth it, for that matter.”

“You don’t think I want him back? _Of course I want him back._ But I don’t want to pressure him into anything, and if he doesn’t want me, I’m not going to impose myself.”

Jemma reaches for her hand, and Daisy tries to keep her breathing under control; funny how she can do it while fighting against four men at the same time, but just _talking_ about Fitz can get her worked up.

“Believe me, he still wants you. He just doesn’t think he is _allowed_ to want you, or that _you_ still want _him._ He feels he is to blame for all this mess, and he is not going to reach out for anyone; you know him, he is _amazing_ at the destructive self-blaming spirals.”

“Look who is talking about self-blame.”

Jemma smiles sheepishly, and Daisy squeezes her hand harder.

“Ah, well. I guess it’s an imperfection the three of us share.”

Daisy is about to protest, but, okay, maybe Simmons has a point.

“I will think about it, okay? I won’t do anything, not now, but… I will consider it.” Daisy ponders over what she is going to ask next, but Jemma is always talking about how she wants Daisy to feel comfortable and like she can be honest with them, and Daisy owes her that much. “But until then, _this,”_ and she strokes Jemma’s palm with her thumb “ _us,_ is still a thing, right?”

Jemma’s smile is so tender that Daisy almost can’t bear it.  

“ _Of course,_ Daisy. Nothing will change that. And whenever you are ready to do something about him, or even _if_ you are ever ready to do something about it, I’ll still be here to walk with you through it.”

They are not big on PDA, but it is too early in the morning, and the only one that could find them here it’s May, and Daisy trusts May, and, anyway, she is not ashamed of Jemma and what they have. And, besides, she just can’t control herself while she gets up to place a trembling kiss on the left corner of Jemma’s mouth.

* * *

Daisy really doesn’t want to do anything to make him suffer- she loves him enough to prioritize his happiness over her selfish desire to be with him-, but Fitz doesn’t look like he is healing that much on his own (about other things, yes, but not about what happened particularly between _them_ inside The Framework), and Daisy can only take so much. She is a woman of action, and when she can't smell him anymore on the old clothes that she uses to sleep in but are actually his, she knows this has gone long enough.

“Do you think Fitz misses you?” She asks Jemma one night while they are spooning on her bed.

“What? Why would he miss me?”

“When you are here, I mean.”

“Oh.”

Daisy feels for Jemma, that has to stretch her time and her patience between the two of them, that tiptoes around them both and sneaks from one bunk to the other, when they were so used to all of them sharing different spaces and different timelines, but every night, sooner or later, featured Daisy sneaking inside their bedroom. After all, fixing this won’t be only for her own and Fitz’s benefits: it will be for Jemma’s, too.

Jemma is quiet for a long beat, and Daisy tightens the embrace around her ribcage. In moments like this, she feels sometimes a strong need to get as close to her as possible, to feel her skin melting against Jemma’s skin, to time their heartbeats together until she can’t tell them apart; to know that even if someone or something wants to tear them apart from each other, they wouldn’t be able to do it. It’s a childish desire, but who can blame her, when a virtual reality and a robot gone rogue have opened such tremendous rift between her and Fitz.  

“Yeah, I guess he does. But he understands, Daisy. And he misses you too, you know.”

Jemma has said it before, but this time there is something different on her voice that gives Daisy pause.

“Does he talk about me? Since he is so obviously not talking  _to_ me, I mean.”

Jemma hesitates, and the three of them agreed on a full disclosure policy before everything turned to shit, but Daisy can’t blame her for not being sure if she should say something or not.

“Not exactly. But he talks about you on his sleep.”

Jemma says it quietly, but it still feels somehow like a punch to her chest.

“Does he now?”

“Yeah.” Jemma turns around until they are facing each other, and Daisy closes her eyes so it’s easier to keep the tears in. “Sometimes they are nightmares about, well, _you know_ , but also about that time you got shot, or when HIVE kidnapped you. Sometimes they are not nightmares at all, sometimes they are just regular dreams, I guess. And sometimes they are _another_ kind of dream entirely.”

It takes Daisy a moment to understand what Jemma is implying, and when she does she opens her eyes, perplexed.

“Are you serious?”

“Uh-uh.”

It’s amazing how one sentence can change the tone of a conversation completely. Things are not less messed-up or less broken because Fitz has _involuntary sex dreams_ about her, but it also means that life still is going on, that not everything that feels severed actually is.

Jemma is looking at her with an intensity that Daisy can not handle, a gaze too much similar to her science-gaze, and Daisy tries to deflect the attention.

“Doesn’t it make you jealous, though?”

Jemma smirks, and Daisy blushes so fast that is almost like a Pavlovian reaction.

“Who said that you are the only one featured on his dreams?”

It’s an attitude so attractive on her that it almost knocks Daisy out of breath; Jemma knowing that she is sexy and desirable makes her so much more sexy and desirable. But it is only a temporary facade, because a moment later Jemma turns back to being candid and serious.

“But anyhow, I understand. It would kill me to not be able to act on the love I feel for either of you, and I can only understand that it’s an emotion that overflows him and gets loose when he has less control over it. You might not dream about him, or if you do I don’t notice, but it overflows you too, and it shows.”        

She doesn’t ask Jemma what she means, but she stays awake thinking about it long after Jemma has gone to sleep. It’s been almost five months, and Mack is still on leave, May is still recovering, Coulson is still adapting; nothing is exactly the same, nor it should be. Fitz still flinches when he gets a bad flash, still has bad days and worse days when the guilt is so consuming that he can’t even get out of bed, still is fiercely defensive of his work, that he thinks over and analyses from every angle before tackling. He still can’t go into the Director’s office. But he is slowly getting better, not acting like nothing ever happened, more like accepting what happened as something that wasn’t exactly real but that still had real consequences in the real world. He is coping, with a ton of determination and the unconditional support of Jemma, and Daisy is tremendously proud of him, but she can’t even tell him that. Because for every person that he is trying to reach out to and make amends with, _he is still not talking to her._

Well, he _is_ talking to her: he acknowledges her existence, he talks to her about work, and he doesn’t act like nothing ever happened between them (not the unyielding friendship, not the sweetest romance), but he doesn’t look her in the eyes while they are talking, he doesn’t get inside her personal space, he keeps every interaction strictly professional. Daisy is not dumb, it hurt at first (it still does), but she notices that it doesn’t matter how cool he tries to play it, he is not immune to her: he turns around on instinct every time she enters a room, he raises his head looking for her every time he gets stuck on a code problem, his hands shake when they pass each other on a corridor, he looks ashamed when she catches him looking at her.

He is restraining himself, maybe even punishing himself, and taking into consideration what Jemma just told her, if she were to do something to fix this, it wouldn’t be only for her sake: she would be acting for his well-being too. Knowing that, she can soldier on and be the better (wo)man.

* * *

It’s not that she and Jemma made a plan, strictly speaking, but they… kind of have a plan.

(“You will have to seduce him.”

“Simmons, whaaaaat? I’m not doing that!”

“Why not?”

“Because he doesn’t want me to! And, besides, I don’t do _that.”_

“Don’t act all offended on me. You are a super spy after all.”

“But I don’t do that! Not on real life, anyway.”

“Oh, believe me, I would _very much_ like it if you were to do _that_ in real life.”)  

They don’t want to be invasive, but Daisy thinks that she is entitled to expressing what she feels, without it meaning that she is imposing herself. Fitz is well known for his temper, and she has to believe that he will complain if he feels attacked. She is not trying to bother him, she is more like… reminding him of what they used to have, and what she still wants with him.  

(She doesn’t know if having Simmons’s help and approval puts her at ease or on edge: on one hand, there is no one more expert at Leopold Fitz than Simmons; but on the other hand, Jemma can be… kind of _intense_ , and that’s not the image Daisy wants to project. But it feels so good to be taking control over her own life and what she wants that she lets Jemma go wild; they can calibrate later, after all.)       

They start slow, because Daisy is still saying that this is just a gentle reminder and not an attack plan, and because they don’t want to give Fitz a _heart_ attack. Simmons knows that he is doing some work that will need an extra pair of steady hands, and she disappears without an explanation, leaving only Daisy on her wake. There are lab techs, of course, but Fitz’s disdain for them is well-known and well-documented. (If he prefers the lab techs over her, she will accept defeat with her head on high.) He seems lost when he raises his head and instead of Jemma, he finds Daisy staring at him- Daisy is not pretending; she wants him to know that this is very deliberate, that she is being there for him because _she wants to_. He opens his mouth, but no words come out, and Daisy takes pity on him.

“Need a hand?”

He seems to consider his options for a minute (Daisy can actually see his face twisting when he looks at the lab techs), before nodding once, curt. He doesn’t speak to her more than strictly necessary to let her know what he needs from her, but she can feel the warmth his body irradiates, and she missed it so much that it makes her almost go dizzy with arousal. He acknowledges her jokes and her small talk with little head shakes, and she is counting this whole experience as a win.

(Jemma is waiting at her bunk, almost bouncing on her toes from anticipation, and Daisy kisses her until they both feel like they are choking. Jemma counts it as a win too.)

* * *

They get even less subtle after that, if that is possible. Daisy goes out of her way to run into him around the base, to compliment his outfit of the day or a task he just completed in the lab, to share the couch on movie night or the kitchen during breakfast. Jemma is doing her part, too, both in accepting being paraded around- they managed to get caught making out by Fitz no less than four times in a single week- and in talking to him in half-formed, rushed snippets that Daisy fails to follow- she doesn’t ask Jemma about them, because they still are and will always be _Fitzsimmons_ , a fixed unit, and she respects that.

She is spurred on, because he doesn’t look uncomfortable or mad, more like awed and kind of bewildered, and Daisy can work with that. Until, of course, everything goes to shit, because she should have known better than to deviate from Jemma Simmons’s Carefully Crafted Action Plan. It’s not like she has a choice, anyway. Not when she is looking for Jemma for their monthly scheduled night of Terrible Movies, and she finds her going out of the lab, pale as a ghost, face streaked with tears, her thin, broken _Excuse me, Daisy_ being like a punch to Daisy’s chest. She is not surprised when she goes inside the lab to find Fitz- ragged breathing, hands shaking, face twisted in pain- trying to get a grip on himself with his elbows over a countertop.

Maybe she should leave him alone, let them solve their own issues on their own time, but she loves them both, and maybe she has a _tiny_ hero complex: she can’t wait on the side till things resolve themselves when she could be helping.

“Hey. What’s going on?”

Fitz raises his head to look at her, and he doesn’t look surprised at all to see her there.

“Daisy.” It’s the first time he has said her name in a long time, and she wish it could be a pleasant experience instead of making her mouth taste bitter. “Of course.”

She gets defensive very quickly after that; she can understand his pain, but she is not willing to let him use her as a punching bag, especially not after he just drove Jemma to tears.  

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means.” His voice is shaking, his hands are shaking, everything on him is unsteady, and it reminds Daisy of the first weeks after the Pod. “It means that you need to stop. Both of you. You and Jemma. You need, you need to stop.”

“Stop what?”

“Everything!” He is angry and hurt, and Daisy is not afraid of him, has never been afraid of him, not even during the Virtual Nightmare, but she is wary all the same. He bottles so much up that when he blows up he rarely can keep it under control. “Stop… stop being so understanding. Stop being considerate. Stop-” he looks down, ashamed of what he is about to say, and Daisy takes a step towards him. “-stop making excuses for me and dump me already.”

_Ah. One of the Bad Guilt Days, then._

“No.”              

“Wh-what?”

He looks up at her then, and Daisy holds his gaze

“I said _no.”_

His face shifts so quickly that is confusing to watch, the anger letting the pain take over.

“But why? I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve anything. And especially I don’t deserve it from you.”

She brings a hand closer to him, without touching him, and when he doesn’t flinch or say anything for a couple of seconds, she puts it on his shoulder.

“Did you stop loving me for what I did under the hive?”

“What? No, of course not!”

“Well, then there you have your reason.”

He closes his eyes and shakes his head.

“It’s not the same thing.”

“I think it is.”

“But it is not, though. You were _genetically,_ _chemically_ manipulated to did things you would have never done otherwise. While AID-” he can’t even pronounce its name, and Daisy nods so he doesn’t have to say it. “She-, _it_ just put myself under different circumstances and look what I became under them!”

He has been over this logic a thousand times before, Daisy knows- with his therapist, with Simmons, with Mack, even with May once or twice-, but never with her, and if he needs everyone on this base to tell him that it is a flawed logic, she will do it a million times over.

“It wasn’t you, Fitz.”

He doesn’t acknowledge her, too tangled on his own discourse.

“I _hit_ you, Daisy. I handed you over to be tortured, I tortured you _myself._ How am I supposed to live with _that?”_

Ah, there it is, the reason why he has been avoiding her all this months; she kind of knew it, of course, but it is nice to finally have it out on the open. (He doesn't mention Mace's death, because he rarely talks about it, only with May. It's something that is hanging over his head at all times, and when she answers him, she is not talking only about them, she is talking about everything that is choking him.)

“ _It wasn’t you_. I can’t emphasise it enough: it was a hacked up twisted _version_ of yourself. And for the tiniest part that _maybe_ was _inspired_ on you after a _million_ manipulation techniques, I forgive you.” She makes a pause, lets him soak on her words. She needs him to listen very carefully to what she is going to say next. “I forgive you, Fitz. _I love you._ That’s my call and you don’t get to make it for me.”

He looks like he is about to burst into tears, and Daisy is kind of surprised, but not really, when he laps forward to kiss her. She has heard all about the Very First Fitzsimmons Kiss of Doom, and she knows he counteracts his more intense feelings with impulsive actions. She kisses him back, because this may not be the healthiest way to wrap up this discussion, but who said that they are the healthiest people, anyway.

It’s just maybe a minute of mouths colliding together, of desperate hands, of soft noises, before Fitz breaks apart, a crazed look in his eyes. Daisy doesn’t chase after him when he leaves, all clumsy limbs and regretful glances, and she understands suddenly that when he said _We’re cursed_ to Jemma, he was actually saying _I’m cursed_.     

* * *

Maybe she should go looking for Jemma- it is their scheduled movie night, after all-, but Jemma doesn’t come to her, and Daisy feels like they all could use some space, some time apart to breathe and regroup. That is her intellectual and detached opinion, that she is, of course, totally incapable of carrying through.

She goes to their bunk that night, like she used to do before, but she doesn’t knock on their door. She just sits outside, her back against the door, and closes her eyes, letting the familiarity of this place and this experience wash over her.  

She can hear them talking, but not understand what they are saying, and even though she is dying to know, she is glad she can’t; they deserve this, this intimacy, this opportunity to sort out their problems without her interference, because his distance and his guilt and their trauma didn’t damage only her relationship with Fitz: they are hurting theirs too.

She stays there for a long time, getting her breathing under control, allowing her mind to feel in control of her body once again, relishing on the knowledge that they are there, alive and fighting to get better. It’s not until they stop talking, and she starts hearing noises that she can only assume mean that they have moved on to another version of making up, that she gets up and leaves.

* * *

“You need to corner him.”

“What?”

“He wants you back, Daisy. He can’t understand fully yet how you can still want him, but if you do, he wants you back, there is no doubt about that. But he still feels like he doesn’t deserve it, and therefore he won’t act on his desires.”

“Did he tell you that?”

“No, of course not. But I’m sure about it. You can trust my judgement.”

“Says the woman who jumped out of a plane.”

“Say whatever you want, but it was the right choice. Maybe not for me, but for all of you. And I took it because I love you. I might be a little over the top about acting on it, but I understand love, and I understand him, and I know this is the right call.”

* * *

They plan it out to the littlest details, because that is the only way of doing things Jemma understands, and Daisy enjoys enabling her and making her happy. And also because she is a little nervous herself about this whole endeavour.

They wait for him on the bunk he shares with Jemma, sitting on the edge of the bed, holding hands. He enters without paying attention, too engrossed on the tablet he is holding on his hands, and when he sees them he looks like he is about to have an aneurysm.

“Fitz.” Daisy is so grateful for Jemma’s firm voice, because her own throat feels like sandpaper. “Come here.”

She doesn’t know how Jemma does it, but Fitz kneels down in front of them, and Jemma smiles at him before leaning down to kiss him. Daisy feels breathless, a tight knot on her chest, tingles traveling over her spinal cord. She has seen them kissing a thousand times, both before and after she has kissed both of them, but it still is captivating to watch. She would never say the words out loud, but sometimes she feels that as long as Fitz and Simmons can find their way back to each other, there can still be hope in this world.

“Fitz.” Jemma says again, and Daisy is in awe of the strong meaning she can convey with that single word. “Fitz, we are both here because we feel it's time to remind you that we both want and love you. We know... we know that you are having a hard time, that you still feel like you have to make amends, that guilt still consumes you. We can understand that, because we both have skeletons in the closet, too. We are not here to say that you have to act on it on any moment or any way predetermined, but to ask you a question: do you still want us?” Jemma raises a hand in the air to put a stop to the words that he is about to say. “You can't answer that you don't deserve us, because we are not asking that. We are asking a simple, different question, and I want you to answer only that: do you still love us?”

"Yes. God, Jemma, you don't even know-" He cuts himself short, looks at Daisy, clears his troath. "Yes, I do. Always."

"Good." Daisy can hear her own voice before being truly aware that she is speaking, but that doesn't make her words less true. "Because Jemma is right. We don't want to disrespect your needs, but we want them to be that, _your_ needs, not what you think would be best for us, not a punishment you think you deserve. Don't make yourself miserable, Fitz. You don't deserve it, and it breaks our hearts."

He nods, his eyelashes bright with tears, and Jemma is holding her hand so tight that she almost lost feeling on it, but it doesn't matter, nothing matters besides fixing this.

"Can I-, um, Daisy, can I-?"

"Yes." It doesn't matter exactly what he is asking, she trusts him, and she wants him to get used to that again.

Fitz stretches his neck a little until he can kiss her, and Jemma's hand relaxes on hers. It is a tentative, soft kiss, so unlike the way they kissed each other in the lab, but it might as well be oxygen pumped straight into her lungs. It takes him a long time to open his eyes back again, and when he does, Daisy sees in them a lot of love, and pain, and gratitude, and all the reasons why she fell in love with him. He takes one hand of each of them on his, and Daisy squeezes it while Jemma takes it to her lips to kiss it. She loves Jemma dearly, and she has a fantastic time when she is alone with her, but _this,_ being the three of them together again, feels like being truly alive after a long time of only surviving.

"Stay?" His voice is tight with emotion, and he is not looking at her, but at Jemma for support.

"As long as you want me to. You will have to kick me out for some alone time with Jemma."

"Um, no. No, not gonna happen."

It feels so good, to joke with him again, even if it is just some silly teasing.

"We will see about that."

Jemma puts one hand on the side of his face and the other on Daisy's thigh. Both of them lean into her touch like cats.

"Excuse me? I will let you know that alone time with Jemma is a hot commodity around here."

"Oh, we know." He says, while taking her hand and kissing each finger in turn. Jemma's breath hitches, and he said he still wants her, it is okay to be turned on by him, by them together, right? "That's why we are cashing in our quotas. At the same time. Right, Daisy?"

Daisy swallows. This two dorks will be the death of her, she is sure about it, but _boy,_ what a sweet way to go.

"Right.”

**Author's Note:**

> The (sex) scene that happens after the end was planned out and everything, but it didn't fit right with the overall tone of the story, so, if anyone is interested on it, let me know.


End file.
